


Touch

by imsfire



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Cassian POV, F/M, First Kiss, Hugs, Post-Battle of Scarif, Protective Jyn, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Touch-Starved, but it's only implied and is v brief - little more than an aside, consent asked and gladly given, embraces, even though both are bad with words and painfully unsure of themselves, protective cassian, rated T for brief implication of past sexual harrassment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-05-02 23:56:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14556381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imsfire/pseuds/imsfire
Summary: Cassian and Jyn begin to build on their trust, and to reach out for one another.





	Touch

For a long time, they just hold one another.  Waking for the first time after the rescue, alone in the med-bay and stuck all over with needles and IV lines, they haul themselves from their separate beds and stumble together.  Clumsily, hopelessly, embrace once again.  Nothing else seems to matter except to be able to touch one another; to know continuing life, through that contact.

As the days go by and the story goes on, it becomes almost their primary communication.  They simply catch hold of one another, every chance they have; hands interlinking, arms round one another’s shoulders, sides pressed together for support.  They lie down to sleep curled together, and each morning when they have to part, each evening when they meet again after a day’s shift, they embrace and don’t let go for long minutes. 

They don’t discuss it; neither is even sure if this is something they want to clarify with words.  It’s been so long, for both of them, without this blessing, of touch, of closeness, of trust.  They have to accept it; they’re both finding new strength simply in being held.  This embrace that keeps one safe, cherished, that allows the shaking heart to slow and rest.  Neither of them has ever been so vulnerable; or ever understood how it could be anything other than torture, to be so.  Yet when they hold one another, that vulnerability seems more like a power flowing unbidden.  A force, from nowhere.

It seems brazen to hope; to dare reach out for more.  It’s enough, and so much more than enough, to stand embracing, tightly as children clinging together, in a safety and an intimacy neither has known for so long.

The sensation of another breathing living body pressed close; to feel that solid warmth in his arms, and her arms wrapped round him.  Being hugged and held, without any kind of demand, without expectation, just held; to know that someone cherishes him, protects him, wants to be near him…  The up-close subtle smells of another person; the fresh laundry smell of a clean shirt and the unlaundered one of an old jacket, and odours of toothpowder and soap, of dust and sweat, oil and fighting; the scent of her hair and musk of her skin.  The texture of fabric under his fingertips, and the firm strength and fragile heartbeat of the living body within.  The way he clings so close it feels as though there can be nothing between them, not even air.

The sounds; a tiny gasp of breath, a scratching of skin on shirt or hair on skin.  The murmur of her voice, breathing out, sighing; forming (can it be? Can it truly be?) the sound of his name… 

He feels the shift of her hand, moving softly over fabric, over skin; the tightening of her arms to lock an embrace closer than close for a few precious moments more.  Feels the heat of her breath on his throat, quickening, so frail and so mighty.  And he shivers as she turns her head and presses her lips suddenly to his skin.  A touch so light, so quick, half his mind fights to believe it happened.

He lets his own hands bunch in her coat, pulling her tight against his chest.  Wishing his skinny arms were a shield stronger than any repulsor field, and could hold all danger off from her forever.  And she clings suddenly, small and full of longing in his embrace, and burrows her face into his shoulder.

Cassian cups one hand over the back of her skull.  Her hair is a harsh tangle of silk and roughness under his fingers.  It takes all his daring to plant a single small kiss, gentle, fraternal, on the crown of her head. 

Jyn sighs, a wordless murmur of acknowledgement; and her lips connect with his throat again, just above the edge of his collar.  Tentative and quick, desperately tender.

Jyn has not lived a tender life, he reminds himself.  To him she has the presence and the power of a supernova.  But it’s not impossible that there have been those who saw only how short and slim she is, how small and how beautiful, and acted to take.

If there were, he hopes she smashed them all in the face.  Or the ribs, or the testicles.  But they will still have existed, for all that.  There cannot have been many people she trusted to hold her, trusted to let herself be small, and hold tight to them. 

Cassian knows what it is to be seen by those who expect always to take what they like in life.  What it is to be reached-for, and touched like a pretty object.  What it is to fight it off, and hope you get away before the blood on your hands is discovered.

He will never do that to Jyn.  She’s borne enough already.  If it takes all the self-control he has, he will never impose his desire on her.

But that leaves him at an impasse.  For the desire is there, no avoiding that.  And she –

She kisses his neck again, and he shivers.  Bends into her embrace, eyes closing again in disbelief.  They can embrace like this, as they would have died doing; for they were meant to be dead, should have been dead now, dead forever. 

All these weeks later, they’re still alive, they’re still here, and death is yet to come.

“I wish I could protect you from everything,” he says.  It sounds stupid, hearing that urge to shield what he loves put into words, such clumsy helpless words; and Jyn stiffens marginally against him.

“You don’t need to,” she snaps out, a reflex kick-back, defending herself before she can be let-down.  Then breathes, and hesitates and says, infinitely more gentle “But – thank you.”  And slowly “Me too.  I wish I could – you’ve had to take so much.  To bear, I mean.  I wish I could – make it less.”

She’s raised her head for a second.  Very close-to, eyes locked-in on his; green and defended, and then slowly letting something more show through, a gleam that he can’t place for a moment.  Something bright and not defended at all.  Something hopeful.

Word shock themselves out of him, ”Jyn, I can’t – can’t undo what’s been done –“

Jyn’s full lips compress, her jaw tightens, biting on anger again for a moment, or memory, or hurt, before she says “I know.  Nor can I.  Cassian –“ She breaks off.  Stares up at him.  She’s so, so close.  Close in every possible sense, as if her mind and heart meld with his even as they stand with arms tight around one another.  He thinks of her bright resolve at the Council, of how she would not leave him, on Scarif.  Of that tiny flutter of a kiss, just now, light as an insect brushing his skin, brief as a dream.

Her eyes are full of light.  Shining.  Pleading.  She takes a breath.  “I won’t push you.  To do – more that you’ll regret.  And I don’t want you to push me…”  Another breath.  They are still holding one another, still so very close.  He spreads his hands across her back, wishing for them to become armour, shields, defence impenetrable.  The woollen cloth of her jacket, half felted and half worn thin, and the living body within it, so stunning to him, so solid and tactile, so near, alive, alive…  

“But if we don’t move, if we – don’t do anything, then…” Jyn shakes her head, looks up, doesn’t flinch though her eyes flicker for a moment with the need to, and the conquering of it. “ Please - please won’t you - move towards me?  I – I can’t go on doing this alone.”

His brain shorts out; he wonders if he’ll ever breathe again.  The seconds drip by like the voice of a thaw, cold air, cold shock, astonishing as her eyes, and she said that

He is alive they are alive this is life she’s with him and –

She said that

and

He breathes, and finds words.  She can’t go on doing this alone? - but “You don’t have to.  If – if you’re sure.”

“I am.”

“So am I.”

It’s as hard as any killing he’s done; and in a way it is a death, the end of something in him that he’s never imagined could cease.  It’s terrifying, and it has to be.

Cassian leans down, breathing shallowly; and even now, he could pretend this isn’t happening, he could just hug her again, after all their embrace is a rock to hold his life steady now, and he could hold her and be blessed in that alone; but he feels her own breath, fast and light as his, falling on his lips as she tilts her head up, gladly, certain in her hope and offering it back to him.  He kisses her with all his fear and hunger, and all his own frail hidden hopes. 

Twenty years of schooling himself and shutting his heart away, fixing all thought on the one great hope of the rebellion, on nothing for himself, nothing and no-one.

He knows that heaven burns; but before the burning comes for them again, maybe…

_I can’t go on doing this alone - You don’t have to._

Jyn’s breath smells of kaf, and her mouth tastes of it, sweet and dark and awake.

They press together, and he can no longer tell who initiates each movement, each shift, as hands slide and caress and pull close, and mouths lock clumsily, eagerly, their kisses deepening till they are both breathless.  And at last they just hold one another again, touching at every possible place, faces turned in, to gasp and gulp and almost laugh with joy, and hug, and not let go.


End file.
